The question whether a photo showing you pulling off a mask after robbing a bank is real or fake may decide if you go to jail or not. For his research on digital video and image forensics, Anderson de Rezende Rocha from the Brazilian University of Campinas has been elected as one of this year's Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows.

The 30-year-old is an assistant professor at the university's Institute of Computing. His research focuses on digital evidence that law enforcement authorities in Brazil use to convict criminals.

Rocha's work takes two approaches to digital material. First, his research aims at detecting spoofing, attempts to cheat systems such as fingerprint or facial recognition. The second core area of his work is to develop tools to reveal forgery, the act of faking digital images or videos. "In Brazil we have had many cases where someone, for example, tried to damage the public image of a politician," he said.